


Only Light

by SomethingProfound



Series: A Sea of Stars [6]
Category: Mass Effect Trilogy
Genre: F/F, Sexual Content, a surprising amount of character development
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-12-11
Updated: 2019-02-09
Packaged: 2019-09-16 09:19:18
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,495
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16951287
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SomethingProfound/pseuds/SomethingProfound
Summary: Moments of intimacy in the face of the dark.





	1. Oh Three Hundred

**Author's Note:**

> This is set in 2183 after Saren's defeat, during Chapter 11 of What Lives In The Dark, though it got a lot...racier than I intended. Yep. Anyway. Context not 100% necessary.

Shepard woke to the holo clock blinking 0334 at her. Time for a spacer was always ruled by numbers, devoid of the markers of planet-bound life. In the dark she could hear her own breathing and Ash shifting in her sleep, bare skin rustling against her sheets.  
  
_It does bother me,_ she realised, staring up at the ceiling. Cerberus had killed her friends on Akuze, killed a good man for the crime of asking questions. They'd tried to kill the woman asleep beside her. They'd infested the nation she'd given her life to.  
  
And, after spitting on everything Shepard valued, they'd tried to take her alive. She ran a hand through her hair as she sat up and swung her legs over the side of the bed, sheets falling away from her. The floor was cool under her bare feet.  
  
What did Cerberus want with her? To flip her? They had to know she'd never willingly work with them, not after Akuze. A control chip maybe? Stuff it into her skull and then send her back out into the galaxy as a puppet?  
  
There was something darkly ironic about an organisation that radicalized slave raid survivors using control chips.  
  
"Hey," Ash's voice was thick with sleep, her calloused palm pressing to Shepard's hip as she rolled over, "what're you doing?"  
  
"Thinking about who I can trust," Shepard replied.  
  
"You can trust me."  
  
Shepard twisted enough to cup Ash's jaw and kiss her, pulling back only reluctantly. "I know."  
  
Ash pressed her lips to Shepard's scarred shoulders. "I can't imagine how this feels for you. Another N7 trying to kill you...I feel pretty betrayed and I'm not even a N7."  
  
"He wasn't trying to kill me." That was the most disturbing part. Beyond just the treason. "Cerberus was trying to take me alive."  
  
"Well," she said low and fierce, "they can't have you."  
  
Ashley pulled her into another kiss, hard and biting. Heat ran through her and she turned around, pressing Ash back into the sheets in between kisses and straddling her hips. She was suddenly desperate to feel something that wasn't cold anger or cold fear.  
  
Ash didn't seem to be complaining, her hands sliding to Shepard's thighs and scraping with just enough nail to make her shiver, and she was warm and real beneath her.  
  
"Might as well take advantage of the privacy, huh?" she murmured as she kissed achingly slow down her neck, across her collarbone, hands either side of Ash's shoulders.. Feeling the way Ash breathed in deep, her hips shifting.  
  
"No one likes a tease," she hissed out, a little breathless as Shepard's lips slipped down to brush one dusky nipple, one hand rising to tangle in her tight black curls, tugging just a little.  
  
Shepard huffed out a soft laugh, enjoying the way Ash's hips jumped at the puff of air. "You are a much bigger tease than I ever could be."  
  
Ashley liked Shepard desperate, liked to leave marks and bruises so neither of them could forget it, liked making Shepard laugh as much as she did making her beg. But soft wasn't bad either - and Emilia didn't think Ash disagreed.  
  
"C'mon," Ash grumbled.  
  
Shepard tilted her head in mock thoughtfulness. "Nah."  
  
"Shepard-" her voice cut off when Shepard covered that nipple with her mouth, flicking it with her tongue, humming as it tightened under her touch. "Fuck. I've missed you."  
  
"Missed you too," Shepard breathed before she switched to Ash's other breast, sucking a red mark into the underside, before taking the nipple into her mouth, biting just enough that Ash swore, hips rising in frustrated desire. She closed her eyes at the just-there pressure and swirled her tongue.  
  
"I want your mouth," here was enough sharpness there to send a delighted shiver down Emilia's spine.  
  
She let go of the nipple with a wet pop, "I'm getting there."  
  
Ash's whiskey brown eyes met hers, serious and full of a fiery warmth, "I'm getting you back for this."  
  
Shepard licked her lips. "Counting on it."  
  
She slid further down, Ash's knee hooking around her hips, wet heat pressing greedily against her muscled abdomen as she began sprinkling kisses over the bottom of her breast and along her ribs.  
  
Fuck everything else. Right now there was just this - the woman she loved twisting a hand in the sheets, heat in her gaze, rigid lines of tension through the curve of her back. They were both alive and real and alone. For a moment Shepard didn't have to care about the Reapers or Cerberus or even the dulled pain of her own injuries.  
  
There was just Ashley.  
  
She licked up the cut lines and planes of Ash's tensed abdomen, the muscles jumping under her tongue, reaching up to cup a breast and rolling the nipple between her thumb and forefinger. Ash's fingers tightened in her hair, enough to sting.  
  
She spared a quick thought for how well she was going to go with having to watch Ashley work out now she knew exactly what it was like to feel those muscles above and below her.  
  
"Shepard," Ashley murmured, "really taking the scenic route, huh?"  
  
She nipped at her stomach, soothing the sting with her tongue. "We don't get a lot of time together. Sue me, I want to savour it."  
  
Ashley stared at her, enough promise in her heated gaze that something clenched in her stomach. She ducked her head, pressed one more kiss to her belly, and pulled back, her hands going to Ash's thighs.  She pushed on the back of Shepard's head, fingers still tangled in her hair. Shepard would've liked to tease her about it - being so goddamn toppy even when Shepard was on top of her or inside her - but it did really get her going. And from the glint in those whiskey brown eyes, Ashley totally knew it.  
  
Shepard didn't want to tease anymore. She slid down and into her with lips and teeth and tongue, laying one forearm across Ashley's hips to hold her in place. She closed her eyes, just focusing on everything she enjoyed about this - the taste of her, the heat of her, the way Ash pressed her hips up into her, her thighs balanced on Shepard's shoulders.  
  
"Fuck. _Fuck_ , Em-"  
  
Shepard sucked her clit into her mouth, lashing the tip with her tongue. Ash threw her head back, gasping for air, hand painfully tight in her hair, her hips surging despite the arm holding her in place.  
  
When Ash stilled, still breathing hard, she made her way back up her body with one last kiss to that impressive stomach to wrap an arm around her waist. She kissed her shoulder affectionately, holding her while her hips still twitched.  
  
"Damn, Skipper," Ash murmured at last, drawing her into a deep kiss.  
  
"Worth the wait?" Shepard smirked, satisfied by a job well done. Her whole body thrummed, prickling all over. Everywhere they touched was like a brand against her skin.  
  
"Yeah, yeah, yeah. I didn't hurt your poor, broken face did I?" There was tenderness in the way Ash cupped her cheek, examining the bruises.  
  
"I'm all good." Shepard assured her.  
  
"Good. My turn," Ash flipped Shepard onto her back. "Hands above your head, babe." Shepard blinked at her and Ash's gaze sharpened. "Now."  
  
The hint of an _order_ made her swallow despite herself. Shepard had never found it easy to take her hands off the wheel, so to speak. Not in life and not in bed. Plenty of women she'd been with had been happy to let her lead, but like in so many other things, Ashley was an exception.  
  
She raised her hands, feeling suddenly vulnerable at the way she was stretched out as she clasped her wrist with her other hand. But something in her enjoyed the pleasure in Ash's eyes when she looked her up and down.  
  
"Ash," she began.  
  
"Trust me?"  
  
That'd been the refrain of the night apparently. But the answer was the same. "Yes."  
  
She trusted Ashley Williams on the battlefield, with her scars and her secrets, and yes, in bed.  
  
Ash kissed the corner of her mouth, her jaw. "Then keep 'em there."  
  
She breathed unsteadily as Ash nipped a path down her jaw and neck, down to her shoulder where she sank her teeth in hard enough to sting. Shepard wanted to reach for her, tangle her hands in that dark brown hair but instead she just clenched her jaw and stayed still. Shepard had laid in her cabin, wide awake and all to aware that Ashley was in her bunk only a deck below, more nights than she wanted to admit. Every night they got this without interruption or fear still felt like something precious. Something just for the two of them.  
  
Ash left a trail of red marks down her body - her unscarred shoulder, her collarbone, the tops of her breasts, the muscles of her abdomen. Her heart was pounding like a drum under her sternum when Ashley came back to her mouth, kissing her roughly with teeth and lips and tongue. Shepard’s resolve snapped like string, her hand rising to cradle the back of her head. Ash made a sound that was part amusement, part almost-snarl and she pulled away with one last bite at Shepard’s lower lip.  
  
Her fingers were like steel wire when she pushed Shepard’s wrist back down. “Stay.”  
  
“What am I? A dog?” she grumbled. Ash was pretty damn good at hand-to-hand, but Shepard had the edge between them. If she wanted to move, she could.  
  
Ash’s eyes glittered with amusement before she ducked her head to press a gentle kiss to Shepard’s other shoulder, crisscrossed with lumpy ropes of white scar tissue. It was the tenderness that made her breathing hitch after everything. She wasn’t exactly ashamed of her scars - she’d kept them for a reason, after all, in a time where dermal regeneration and artificial skin could so so much - but acid scars were hardly attractive. More than one shore leave liaison had averted her eyes when Shepard took her shirt off. Hell, her ex-wife had looked away once the bandages had come off. But Ash seemed to enjoy all of her - imperfections and scars and the muscle of a body honed as a weapon.  
  
“You doing alright there, Skipper?” she asked, sliding a thumb across her chin, a softness in her eyes.  
  
“Yeah.” A pulse of warmth ran through her. Whatever bruises they might leave on each other, there was always this - the caring.  
  
Ash leant down to kiss her again, her dark hair falling across Shepard’s cheek. Then she reached down to hook Shepard’s leg around her hips, fingers digging into her hard thigh, pressing their bodies together. Her hand pressed down, still teasing.  
  
“For fuck’s sake, Ash,” she groaned, letting her head thump against the pillow in frustrated desire as her hips jolted upwards in search of more.  She felt more than heard Ash’s laughter in puffs of air against the skin of her throat. “C’mon.”  
  
Ash nipped at her earlobe. “Need something, Skipper?”  
  
Shepard glared at her with as much feeling as she could muster when Ash’s fingers were trailing between her legs but never with enough pressure, damnit. “Just fuck me already.”  
  
“Jesus, babe.” Ash hissed, pupils blown wide in the dim light.  
  
Then Ash was finally, finally, sliding into her with two fingers. She gasped out in both pleasure and relief, her fingernails biting into the skin of her own wrist. Ash kissed her shoulder again as she set the pace, thrusting hard and sure and relentless, not letting Shepard catch her breath, anchoring her to the bed with her own weight. Shepard let her eyes flutter shut, alone in this dark room with Ashley on top of her and inside her, little sounds working themselves out of her lips despite herself.  
  
She felt the sting of Ash’s teeth against her neck - and oh, she was gonna tell her off for that later, damnit - and then Ash’s thumb was dragging over her clit.  
  
Ash’s voice was in her ear, low and intense, “I love you.”  
  
Shepard froze, every muscle tensing, and then she was burying her face in Ash’s neck as she shook, her hands going to her waist and her back, pulling her as close as possible.  Ash didn’t pull her hand away until she stopped trembling, pressing a kiss to her forehead as she rolled off her.  
  
“Feel better?” the smug satisfaction on her darkened face couldn’t quite hide the apprehension lurking in her dark eyes.  
  
“Ash,” she murmured, cupping her face with one hand and studying her face. She’d seen a gun levelled at her head forty-eight hours ago. Death was a staple of their occupation and it wasn’t going to change any time soon. For years, Akuze had been the reason she’d walled herself off from those around her, boxed her own heart away neatly, somewhere it couldn’t hurt her. She didn’t want to live like that anymore. “I love you too.”  
  
She felt Ashley relax beside her. “Well…good.”  
  
Shepard chuckled and then leant down to kiss her. “We should get some sleep. We have to be up in,” she checked the clock and winced, “a couple of hours.”  
  
The Navy never waited, after all.


	2. A Beginning

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Set in 2183, during Chapter 38: Eye of the Storm of Encroachment. First part of the conversation is from that chapter, the smut isn't >>

Shepard was bent over her desk, palms against the metal surface, staring intently at an array of datapads and her laptop. She straightened when Ashley entered the room and turned to face her, expression inscrutable.

"Hey. Burning the midnight oil?"

"Something like that. I hate flying blind, and it feels a bit like that's all I've been doing since I boarded the _Normandy_ ," Shepard replied, frowning.

"I don’t think anyone saw the Reapers coming, Skipper."

Shepard's mouth curved in a wry smile. "I guess not. You don't need to call me that, Ash." She'd missed her calling her _Ash_ , and it'd been less than 36 hours since Shepard had run from her. "I'm a traitor now. I probably shouldn't be wearing this uniform, let alone this star."

Her finger brushed the gold on her pocket, and she looked deflated. Shepard had been in the Alliance military for eleven years, dedicated herself to it. And now…

It wasn’t easy walking away from your life’s work. Even if it was the right thing to do. 

“We had to do this,” Ash said softly, fervently. “There was no other way. You know that.” And then she smiled. “Besides, you’ll always be the Skipper to me. Oh Captain, my Captain.”

“Whitman, huh? And you call Kaidan the nerd.” Shepard stopped, looking stricken.

A pulse of grief burned in her chest, but she smiled through it. She didn’t mean to forget the good times with Kaidan. “You’re the one who can tell what poem I’m talking about off one line.”

“If you call me ‘Oh Captain, my Captain’ in the field, I’ll kick your ass,” Shepard deadpanned.

“You could try,” Ash shot back cockily. “I think I have you figured out now, Shepard, and I’ve got a few tricks of my own.”

“Is that so?” Shepard’s smirk was slow. Ash was pretty sure Shepard could read the dictionary and it’d be hot, especially when her voice got low and smoky like that.

“Why don’t you find out?” she challenged and something dangerous flashed in the Commander’s eyes - and then Shepard seemed to realise they were treading into hazardous territory and looked away. She barely resisted the urge to facepalm. “Look, Shepard. I’m not a word person. Other people say what I mean better than I do. Hell - we're mutineers, sailing a stolen warship into the most hostile system in the galaxy. Just call us humanity's best and brightest.”

Shepard sighed, hooking her thumbs through her belt loops. “There’s a part of me convinced that I’m just going to get you all killed. I keep telling myself we’re doing the right thing.” She shook her head slightly. “I don’t believe me yet.”

“Believe me then,” Ashley said strongly, Shepard’s eyes rising back to meet hers. “You’re doing the right thing. We’ll get home again, Shepard. You’ll get us home.”

Shepard searched her face for a long moment. “Thank you. You…you should be with your guys. I’ll be alright.”

“I think you know why I’m here, Skipper,” she breathed out softly.

Shepard stared at her. “It’s…it’s exhausting sometimes. Trying to be the person everyone expects me to be.”

“You could put that down tonight,” Ash said boldly, despite the loud thump of her pulse in her ears. It wasn’t every day you propositioned your commanding officer.

“Trying the frontal assault, Williams?”

“Depends. You giving ground?” she shot back.

Shepard leant back against the desk. “I don’t know if I should.”

“What are you afraid of?”

“Besides the obvious?”

“Skipper,” she said patiently, “I think we both know that’s a bit of a cop-out. We’ve already stolen a multi-billion credit warship. I think fraternization is gonna be pretty low down on the list of charges, don’t you?”

“I can’t shut up the voice in my head,” Shepard sighed, shoulders slumping. “The one telling me that this is wrong. That there’s distance between commander and subordinates for a reason.”

“Is that what you want?” Ash asked softly.

Shepard’s hands wrapped around the edge of her desk, the muscles of her forearms taut, but she was looking at Ashley’s lips. “No. I don’t always want to lead you, Ash. Sometimes I want to stand beside you.”

“That sounds like an admission of something, Skipper,” Ashley hummed, grinning.

Shepard rolled her eyes. “Shut up.”

“Look, Skipper,” she said, sobering, “if you don’t want to do this, we can just go through reports, or I can go back to my bunk. I’m not going to get all offended. I respect you - as a friend and as an officer. That’s not going to change.”

_Even if I have some kind of stupid crush on you.  
_

She took a step back - but Shepard’s hand shot out, fingers grasping her forearm. “I don’t want you to go.” Shepard looked like she was struggling with herself before she sighed. “It’s less about whether we can. It’s more whether I _should_. I’m your Commander. That’s a pretty big power imbalance. The last thing I want is to pressure you or take advantage of you.”

“Shepard. Emilia,” Ash said very patiently, because as much as part of her just wanted to grab her and go _do you want sex is a yes or no answer, damnit_ , Shepard wouldn’t be Shepard without her code. “I came to you. I’m here because I want to be and because I trust you. I've spent my whole life fighting to get what I want. To get it done, I had to bury a lot of things. During that whole time, not even once did I feel like I was worth what I was fighting for. You make me feel good enough.”

She wanted to look away after that admission, but Shepard was looking at her with all that trademark intensity like she was something - special - instead of just some jarhead.

“It kills me that people ever made you feel that way.” She brushed her hand down her arm, sliding her thumb across the back of Ash’s hand. “You make _me_ feel human.”

“Is that a yes?”

Shepard smiled, soft and slow. “C’mere.”  
  
“Hmm,” she pretended to consider it, “nah. I think you should come here.”  
  
Emilia took a step towards her, dark eyes intent, her hands finding the sides of Ashley’s face and pulling her in until they were kissing again. Slow and deep and sure, as if Shepard had found every one of her doubts and tossed them aside.  
  
Ash pressed into her until Shepard bumped into her desk.  
  
“My desk, really?” Shepard murmured into her mouth, even as her hands rose to the back of Ashley’s head, tugging gently until her hair came down.   
  
Ash smiled against her and nipped at her lip. She ran her hands down the front of Shepard’s uniform jacket, feeling the cool metal of her name badge and command star, the way she breathed in sharply as Ash’s touch passed over her ribs and abs.  
  
And then she began to undo the buttons as Shepard’s hand twisted in her long, dark hair and tugged, just enough to sting. Her other hand drifted to Ash's jaw, held her in place as they kissed again and again, her mouth sure and hungry - as if she was worried Ash might move away.   
  
Ash was perfectly happy where she was. She'd thought of this a few times, taking Shepard's uniform off - guilty and alone in her bunk, skin burning from where Shepard might've have brushed against her earlier.   
  
She pulled away. "Seriously?"   
  
The jacket was caught between Shepard's back and her desk and she'd untucked the plain white shirt she wore under it, but underneath that was a goddamn compression singlet.   
  
Shepard smirked at her, a glint of white teeth in the dim light of her cabin, "Hey, I wasn't planning on this when I got dressed this morning, okay?"   
  
"It's very inconvenient," Ash murmured, brushing her lips along the edge of her jaw, "You should be more considerate."   
  
"I'll wear less clothes next time. Just for you," Shepard deadpanned.  
  
And then Ash was laughing into the skin of her neck, Shepard's arms looped around her. Shepard grinned at her, more relaxed and open than she'd seen her be before, and she felt for a moment like something was squeezing her chest. This wasn't just some hot stranger she'd found on shore leave - this was Emilia Shepard, her commander, her comrade, her friend. And maybe there were some hearts and sparkles feelings involved.   
  
Shepard was right that they were stepping over a line, and there'd be no stepping back. Not as commander and sergeant, and not as Just Friends. But they'd never been just friends, had they? There'd always been something between them.   
  
Ah well. They were screwed anyway. Might as well have some of the right kind of screwing.   
  
So Ash kissed her again. Part of her thought she could do this for hours - just kissing her, being close to her. The rest of her was very aware of the time ticking away steadily until they threw themselves at the geth on Ilos - and that she did really want to see Shepard naked.   
  
She pulled back, and Shepard took the opportunity to pull off her shirt and singlet.  
  
"Damn, Skipper." She'd known Shepard was fit but it was another thing to get to look at her. Touch her. Ash pressed a hand to her stomach, felt the hard muscle and soft skin.  
  
Shepard hissed out a breath when Ash ran her nails from the bottom of her sports bra to her belt. The other woman stepped forward and into her, pressing their hips and mouths together, and then her hands were on Ash's uniform jacket, pulling it open.   
  
"Impatient," Ash murmured with a smirk in between kisses.  
  
"You're just a tease," Shepard grumbled. Then she'd pulled Ash's shirt out of her pants and had a hand beneath it and the cup of her bra, pinching one of her nipples between a calloused thumb and forefinger. Ash couldn't help the noise that escaped her throat.   
  
Shepard gave her a little, smug smirk and all of her sexual frustration and just - general frustration at having to toe the line with her the past few months came rushing up. Making her burn.   
  
Ash pushed Shepard back into her desk by her hips and kissed her hard, sliding a thigh in between hers and smiling into her mouth, sharp and hungry, when she felt Shepard's hips press down, the soft moan against her lips. She bit down, just hard enough to sting, on her unscarred shoulder. Shepard must've liked that because her hips moved again.  
  
Then she pushed her sports bra up and took one dark nipple into her mouth, feeling it harden further under her tongue and lips and teeth, cupping her other breast with her hand.  
  
"Ash," her name sounded good in Shepard's voice, she decided, particularly when it was taut with desire like that. She’d hated the distance between them after they’d kissed, the formality of _Sergeant Williams_.   
  
She dropped her hands to her belt, meeting Shepard's eyes and looking for any hesitation. There wasn't any. _Yeah, we're really doing this._ It was suddenly hard to breathe, with those dark eyes looking at her like that - warm, affectionate, wanting.   
  
So she dropped her head to press another kiss to Shepard's clavicle and flicked her belt open. Slid her hand in - and of course Shepard was a briefs girl - and smiled at the warmth she found.  
  
"I didn't realise," Shepard's breathing hitched as Ash's hand trailed over her, exploring, "you were serious about having sex against my desk."   
  
"I can stop," Ash hummed into her neck.  
  
"Don't," Shepard's fingers dug into her hips, holding her in place.  
  
She'd thought Shepard might be a quiet lover, a stoic one. She wasn't expecting the little soft sounds that escaped her when Ash found her clit and began to rub circles over it, gently and then more firmly. She wasn't expecting the way Shepard held her, the way she buried her face in Ash's shoulder, dark curls brushing her cheek.   
  
"God, Skipper," she murmured, kissing her forehead, as she pressed into her with one finger.   
  
Shepard's body was taut and tense against her, her fingers digging into her skin.   
  
"I'll admit," she purred as she curled into her, rubbing her thumb over her clit as she did, "I've thought about fucking you against your desk a few times, when it’s just been the two of us in here."   
  
"Ash-" Shepard choked out her name, and then she was shaking against her, silent except for her ragged breathing. Ashley let her ride through it, cradling her head against her shoulder, running her fingers through her black hair. Her biotics wrapped around them, a hazy blue glow that made Ash tingle wherever they touched.   
  
“Alright?” Ash said into her hair, stroking a hand down the line of her spine.

“Fine.” Shepard lifted her head and her dark eyes were narrowed, burning. And Ash smirked at her, even as she kicked off her pants and pulled Ash’s jacket and shirt off, pushing her towards her perfectly regulation made bed, her mouth hard and biting on her neck and lips. And she laughed, when they tumbled onto the scratchy sheets together, cut off by the urgent press of Shepard’s kiss.

There was a lot wrong - the fact that they were all wanted by the Alliance, that Kaidan and Akmed and Nick were dead - but this? Here and now? It felt right - with Shepard’s weight on top of her, her fingers grasping at her skin, her breath a pant in her ear, her back painted in the blue of the still active terminal.


End file.
